They changed their route to walk with me and we talked of
illness, fatigue, alternate realities and the relatively minor matter of death.
Millie kept her own council, but insisted on sidling up to me every so often to push her
head into my palm. I think it must be widely known by now that I like dogs a
lot; it’s women who come bearing them that cause me a problem. Dogs are much
less likely to pull you into a long, dark tunnel, you see, and I’m never
surprised when dogs like me. Women who seem to like me, on the other hand,
cause me some disquiet because it would be hard to find anything about me which
a woman should like. (I’ve even been called a misogynist, which isn’t true.) That’s
why I’m tempted to wonder whether each one of them is a physical manifestation
of the mad woman I used to dream about frequently as a child. She used to scare
me witless on every occasion that she appeared.
But I’m through with talking about women and dogs, at least
for the time being. (Please note the use of the American idiom. We Brits don’t
say ‘I’m through with…’ It’s all House’s fault and I’m resolved that it won’t last
beyond the end of the series.)
So now I’ll change the subject and mention that the wild garlic
in The Hollow is blooming about a month earlier than usual. You can’t trust the
climate, can you? And the full moon is looking in at my office window again. When
I went to bed last night her radiance was lying on top of me, a phenomenon I’ve
been given to believe is bad for the mind. I don’t call her ‘Mistress Moon’ for
nothing.
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